Tailoring sales copy for an ‘Unaware’ prospect.
The first post in this series outlined the sales copy ‘customer awareness graph’ that was created by copywriting legend Gene Schwartz.
Most Aware Product Aware Solution Aware Problem Aware Unaware
<—————————————————————————————————————->
DIRECT APPROACH INDIRECT APPROACH
We are now at the 6th and final post of the series.
Crafting a sales script for a completely ‘Unaware’ customer.
What is an ‘Unaware’ customer?
This type of prospect knows nothing of your brand or product. They know nothing about what it does and don’t know that they need it yet.
It’s a tough market to crack. So you have to take an approach that catches them off guard. If you try and hit this type of prospect with a sales pitch or product demo you will simply scare them off.
As you can see on the chart, you need to apply a completely indirect sales approach in order to maximise your chances of winning the prospect over.
If you read the most recent post covering the ‘Problem Aware’ prospects, it was mentioned that a ‘Proclamation lead’ was effective in catching the customer off guard with a shocking statement. This gives the sales copy enough curiosity for further attention. This indirect method gets your ‘foot in the door’ to ease them into the pitch.
An even more indirect sales angle is a ‘Story Lead’.
Everybody – from all cultures, loves a good story.
If done properly, this type of lead can be the most effective of all. Story leads get shared more and have the best chance of going viral.
What is a ‘Story lead’?
It’s a sales lead that has no hallmarks of advertising material. Another name for it is ‘Native advertising‘. Your unsuspecting prospect stumbles over it and starts watching (or reading) as it begins with a strong lead and headline that compels the viewer to keep following to see what happens with interest.
It is only once the hook is firmly set in the viewer’s mouth that they start to realise that it is in fact advertising material. By this point, the prospect doesn’t care. You have their full attention.
Depending on your strategy, the advertising doesn’t even need a pitch. Just something that relates back to your brand so they can identify with it in the future.
The difficulty with this style of sales approach is that your content has to be really strong. You will find you either hit the bulls-eye or miss completely.
Most marketers initially think that the story has to be humorous. Although humour is a winning angle, empathy is a close second. If you are able to get your prospect to relate to a character or scenario with empathy where they are thinking “that could be me” then you a step in the right direction.
If you are interested in trying out this indirect sales approach, a key point to remember is to keep your viewer guessing. If the story is predictable, then you will lose your viewer. However, if you lead them to think something will happen, then add a twist to the plot, then you may have something worth sharing. Possibly viral content.
To summarise this series of posts: Why is understanding your prospects ‘awareness’ important?
It is just as important to understand what your prospect already knows – as it is to know what they want.
There is no ‘blanket sales approach’ for everybody.
Identify where your key audience falls on the graph, and start crafting your sales campaign to fit how direct you will be with them. If done carefully, your conversion rates will skyrocket.